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The Devil's Teeth.

Jeannette DePalma.

It
was a case that shook a small New Jersey suburb to its core.

On
August 7th, 1972, sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma walked out of
her home in the sleepy township of Springfield, and into the realm of
urban legend. She had planned to hitchhike to a friend’s house
before an afternoon shift at work.She
would never make it.

Six
weeks after seemingly vanishing into thin air, the body of Jeannette
DePalma was found after a local dog brought the teenager’s
decomposed arm back to its owner. A search party discovered the rest
of her remains high atop of a cliff inside an abandoned quarry. For
decades, this eerie outcropping of roch had been known to locals as
the Devil’s Teeth.

The
local police tried to diffuse this situation by quietly suggesting to
others that girl must have been partying with friends in the woods,
and overdosed. The fact that Jeannette’s body was so badly
decomposed made the determination of a cause of death uncertain.
According to the first-responders who climbed the Devil’s Teeth,
Jeannette body was found surrounded by occult objects, suggesting
that a ritual sacrifice had taken place.

Rumors
of witchcraft and Satanism were splashed across the headlines of
every local paper in the county. News of Jeannette’s supposed
Satanic murder traveled as far as Iowa. The terrified citizens of
Springfield began to demand answers. How could something like this
happen in such a nice, middle-class community? The DePalma family
suggested to reporters that Jeannette could have been targeted by
Satanists or modern-day witches due to her activity within her
church. However, Jeannette’s parish of choice - an Evangelical
center located in the urban city of Elizabeth – quickly distanced
themselves from the dead teenager; denying any significant
involvement in her life.

While
the police and the public were becoming mired in these bizarre
subplots, connections to other events in the area were going
overlooked – including the deaths of several other young women
nearby.

As
time passed, the DePalma case vanished from the headlines, and the
terrified residents of Springfield seemed more than happy to forget
the event, despite the fact that no arrests were ever made.